What is play?
What is play?
What is play?
The word play is usually used to describe the activities of children from babyhood until the early teenage years.
There is no neat definition that will cover all the meanings given by parents, early years and playwork practitioners and other adult commentators - let alone how children talk about play when their opinions are invited. Yet there are some common themes:
• Play includes a range of self-chosen activities, undertaken for their own interest, enjoyment and the satisfaction that results for children;
• Very young children, even babies, show playful behaviour when they explore sound and simple actions and experiment with objects of interest; • Play activities are not essential to meet basic physical survival needs.
But play does seem to support children's emotional well being as well as a wide range of learning within their whole development;
• Children can play alone, but often they play with other children and with familiar adults. Even very young children engage in simple give-and-take or copying games with their peers, older siblings or with adults;
• A playful quality in activities is shown by the exercise of choice, enjoyable repetition and invitation by children to others to join the play; • Yet children's play can look serious.
Players may show great absorption in the activity and disagreements can result from a difference of opinion about how the play should progress. Do all children play?
Historical and cross-cultural evidence shows that all children play, unless their living circumstances are very harsh or the children are very ill.
• Children's available or chosen playthings and games vary across time and culture. Yet some playful activities seem to be very common.
Some examples include play with dolls and similar figures, construction activities with whatever is available and imaginative play that recreates what children see in their own families
and
What is play?
The word play is usually used to describe the activities of children from babyhood until the early teenage years.
There is no neat definition that will cover all the meanings given by parents, early years and playwork practitioners and other adult commentators - let alone how children talk about play when their opinions are invited. Yet there are some common themes:
• Play includes a range of self-chosen activities, undertaken for their own interest, enjoyment and the satisfaction that results for children;
• Very young children, even babies, show playful behaviour when they explore sound and simple actions and experiment with objects of interest; • Play activities are not essential to meet basic physical survival needs.
But play does seem to support children's emotional well being as well as a wide range of learning within their whole development;
• Children can play alone, but often they play with other children and with familiar adults. Even very young children engage in simple give-and-take or copying games with their peers, older siblings or with adults;
• A playful quality in activities is shown by the exercise of choice, enjoyable repetition and invitation by children to others to join the play; • Yet children's play can look serious.
Players may show great absorption in the activity and disagreements can result from a difference of opinion about how the play should progress. Do all children play?
Historical and cross-cultural evidence shows that all children play, unless their living circumstances are very harsh or the children are very ill.
• Children's available or chosen playthings and games vary across time and culture. Yet some playful activities seem to be very common.
Some examples include play with dolls and similar figures, construction activities with whatever is available and imaginative play that recreates what children see in their own families
and